One in every three school children fail BMI test: study

Every third child in India has an unhealthy BMI and only those schools that have more than three sessions of physical education have fitter children, a study has revealed.  

The nationwide seventh Annual School Health and Fitness Study 2016 has revealed that the fitness and BMI levels of school children in India — regardless of age, gender, region or city continue to be far from satisfactory.

Numbers between 18.5 – 24.9 is considered as normal or healthy BMI. Anything below the range is considered underweight, and above is overweight or obese.  

The study by EduSports, a physical education and school sports enterprise, was built into the co-scholastic curriculum of schools for the academic year 2015-2016. It covered over 1,69,932 children in the age group of seven to 17 years, in 326 schools, across 86 cities, in 26 states. It assessed fitness parameters, like sprint capacity, flexibility, lower and upper body strength, abdominal strength and body mass index (BMI). However, 69 per cent girls have a healthy BMI compared to 62 per cent boys, with boys showing stronger lower body strength than girls.

Interestingly, fitness levels of children in metro and non-metro cities were similar. Only 66 per cent children in metros had a healthy BMI versus 65 per cent in non-metros. The percentage of children with unhealthy BMI has increased from 20 per cent last year to 33 per cent this year.

The study tracked the BMI scores of primary, middle and high school children over three years from the time a structured sports programme was introduced. At least, 65 per cent primary and high school children improved their BMI score compared to 59 per cent three years ago. Also the corresponding numbers for middle school children went up from 61 per cent to 70 per cent.

According to researchers, one hour of reasonably rigorous playtime daily is ideal for a growing child to be healthy and fit. As part of the structured programme that 245 schools ran for nine months, children with more than three physical education sessions per week were fitter than children with lesser number of physical education sessions.

“Children are becoming less active for environmental or interpersonal reasons. Lack of physical activity increases the risk of obesity and health-related problems in adolescence, and adulthood,” said Saumil Majmudar, CEO and Co-founder, EduSports. “Schools provide the ideal environment to promote physical activity at the right age and improve fitness standards among children,” he said.

“If schools administration promote physical activity, have healthy foods in cafeteria, and mothers cook healthy at home and involve themselves in physical activity with children, obesity is prevented and children attain normal range of body mass index,” said Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman, National Diabetes, Obesity and Cholesterol Foundation.